Message Board Thread - "Thermography of a greenhouse?"

Hello,
I did my level 1 certification in building science but I have done mostly houses for the past months. My main job is in agriculture and a client of mine would be interested in an energy audit for his greenhouses. It's a big company with 14 acres of greenhouses, producing boston lettuce. Would it be possible for me to do it, the manager would like to have a scan of the windows because they break a lot in the winter.

Thanks a lot for your help or any information!

Re:Thermography of a greenhouse?

David Brown

9/27/2010

Hi,

As you no doubt know from your Building Science course and residential experience, glass is tricky -- not because of low emissivity (it's actually about 80%) but because its reflection is so specular. So long as: 1) you are doing qualitative analysis only (rather than trying to measure temperatures); 2) you keep your background as uniform as possible (see bad example below); and 3) provide as high a delta-T as possible, you should be able to find defective panes quite easily. Insofar as possible, you might want to try doing your scans from the inside to exploit the uniform background and warmer ambient temperature.

Dave

Re:Thermography of a greenhouse?

EmiVal

9/28/2010

Thank you very much for your answer!

Yeah, I know about the glass reflection so this is why I was asking if anybody have ever done that. It's only for qualitative analysis. The manager wnats to know where he is loosing heat, around windows, electrical and gas pipes. .My delta-T should be quite large because I might do it this winter.